Category Archives: 9/11

In the aftermath of 9/11, those in power who failed to protect the US and defend the Constitution before 9/11 used the attacks as a pretext for suppressing rights and launching wars – and they still do. Those doing so have received public support, and increased authority and budgets from the Executive branch and Congress. […]

Historycommons.org (fka cooperativeresearch.org) is a unique and useful web-based tool for documenting facts that are suppressed or spun in Establishment narratives, for researching complex events and sometimes murky relationships between entities and events, and for educating the public (thus increasing transparency and facilitating accountability). This website, first as cooperativeresearch.org, and then as historycommons.org, has existed continuously since 2002, but it is now in dire need of financial assistance; if funding does not significantly increase, the site may go offline by the end of this summer.

A new investigation of 9/11 is needed, as all investigations so far have been superficial or corrupted, and have failed to meaningfully address significant issues. However, the Commission proposed by the Citizens 9/11 Commission Campaign will be unable to meaningfully address these issues, and there are significant problems with the Campaign itself; this essay will address three. First, state authority will be of little value in a 9/11 investigation due to the ‘sovereign immunity’ of the US federal government. Second, the Campaign and proposed Commission are not structured in a way that makes them accountable to the public; mechanisms are not built in to ensure the public has adequate oversight of the course of investigation, the use of funds and those entrusted with responsibility for these things — short of passing another ballot initiative, or petitioning their state legislature to act. Finally, the Campaign has made inaccurate and misleading representations: The proposed Campaign promotes itself as a way to circumvent the federal government’s failure to adequately investigate 9/11, but state-level authority does not meaningfully provide a way to do this. And, despite rhetoric to the contrary, the Campaign and the Commission do not truly represent direct democracy, as the Campaign Steering Committee and Board of Directors are self-selected and the commissioners would by chosen by them, not by the people. The first two points will be addressed in separate sections below, and the third point will be addressed in both sections.

It is a non-controversial fact that the NSA, CIA and FBI missed a number of opportunities to disrupt the 9/11 plot. Many, but not all, of these failures were documented by the four main investigations that dealt with pre-9/11 intelligence failures: those by the Congressional Joint Inquiry, the 9/11 Commission, the Department of Justice Inspector General and the CIA Inspector General. The best-known investigation, the 9/11 Commission, ultimately concluded that 9/11 was preceded by “four kinds of failures: in imagination, policy, capabilities, and management” (339). This is the narrative largely held to by mainstream politicians and media, but these explanations do not credibly account for what happened at the NSA, CIA and FBI in the years, months and weeks leading up to 9/11. This has been demonstrated by a number of researchers, but Kevin Fenton’s* book, Disconnecting the Dots, has the most comprehensive documentation and in-depth analysis to date. Primarily using the official reports, the available source records and some reporting by mainstream media and journalists, Fenton documents how specific CIA and FBI officials engaged in deliberate efforts to protect the 9/11 plot from discovery and disruption by FBI investigators, and that the most probable explanation is that this was done in order to enable the 9/11 attacks.

The FBI confirmed it has 3429 pages potentially responsive to my FOIA request for records and references re: FBI File 203A-WF-210023, including Tom Lantos. Then in a subsequent letter it said, “the FBI neither confirms nor denies the existence of records which would indicate whether an individual or organization is or has ever been of investigatory interest.” According to Sibel Edmonds, this counterintelligence documented a ring, which included Turkish and Israeli agents, members of Congress, and State and Defense Dept. officials, which was involved in bribery, blackmail, money laundering, espionage, drug and arms trafficking, facilitation of terrorist activities, obstruction of FBI investigations, and provision of classified information to unauthorized parties, including secrets related to US foreign policy, and nuclear and conventional weapons technologies.

Beginning with his book New Pearl Harbor (2004) David Ray Griffin raised questions concerning the veracity of reports of phone calls from the 9/11 hijacked airliners, specifically, Ted Olson’s account. Since at least 2006, he has promoted a theory that the 9/11 plane passenger phone calls were faked, and has speculated this was done with ‘voice-morphing’ technology. He’s done this in many different articles, in books, in speaking appearances, in interviews on radio and television, and in a debate with Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone magazine. In his 1/12/10 essay, Phone Calls from the 9/11 Airliners: Response to Questions Evoked by My Fifth Estate Interview, David Ray Griffin gives the most comprehensive overview of this theory to date, as well as a response to critics, which include people who support a new 9/11 investigation. A Professor Emeritus and skilled rhetorician, Griffin makes a case that is seemingly compelling. However, as I show in this essay, there is no actual evidence the phone calls were faked, while there is a substantial body of evidence demonstrating the calls were not only possible, but did happen. There are many credible reasons to doubt the official 9/11 story and support a full investigation, but the cause of compelling a new 9/11 investigation is undermined by the promotion of theories that are flawed, and not based on hard evidence. In addition, the claim that the phone calls were faked is obviously offensive to those family members who spoke with passengers before they died, and it has the potential to drive a wedge between truth and justice activists and potential allies among the family members, many of whom support a full investigation.

August 8, 2009 Sibel Edmonds testified to her knowledge of foreign agencies’ and US officials’ corruption and abuse of power; espionage, obstruction of FBI investigations, trafficking in arms and nuclear secrets, blackmail, bribery, money laundering, 9/11 foreknowledge and facilitation of terrorist activities. As Edmonds had been subpoenaed by David Krikorian to testify in connection with the Schmidt v. Krikorian lawsuit, the questioning focused on her knowledge as it related to Krikorian’s allegations that Jean Schmidt had accepted ‘blood money’ in exchange for favors to the Turkish lobby. This is a summary of the first part of Edmonds’s deposition; I wrote it as an entry for HistoryCommons.org, so it is in the present tense.

Not sure what to think about 9/11? Perhaps you’re curious, but you want to avoid the circus of conspiracy theories, lies and disinformation? Starting now, you can go to 9/11 Truth News http://www.911truthnews.com for updates on under-reported news, effective activism being done by the international 9/11 Truth Movement, and highlights of the best research and scientific information.

I’m retracting the article originally posted here as it has been brought to my attention that threats prosecuted under Section 422 of the California Penal Code are sometimes referred to as “terrorist threats.”